Analysis: There are many lessons to learn from past generations in how they reused and recycled furniture, fashion and food waste
The past can always offer valuable lessons for modern society. In an era before mass consumerism, people reduced, reused and recycled in ways that are enviable to us today. Back in a time before regular bin collections, waste management or recycling, the homes of Irish people (particularly in rural areas) operated in a way which would be considered highly sustainable by climate activists today.
In many ways they were models for what is known as the 'circular economy’. Here are three past approaches to waste and materials in Irish homes which could be models for how we live today.
Irish vernacular furniture
We are living in a world of fast furniture, with a vast selection of affordable products with short lives that are inconvenient to repair. Ultimately unsustainable and wasteful, this impacts the environment negatively in the long run. In Irish rural interiors of the past, household furniture was sparse and consisted of essential pieces that were built to last. In addition, timber was expensive to buy.
After deforestation in the 17th century, Ireland became renowned in Europe for the lack of trees in the landscape. Timber became a scarce commodity except for the rich, and local supplies were so poor that cheap timber was imported. At times throughout Irish history even timber for coffins was unavailable, and the reusable hinged coffin was a feature of Famine times. So, what is one to do when you need furniture for your home and timber is not an option? You adopt a circular approach.
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From RTÉ's Jennifer Zamparelli on 2FM, Aoife Tobin and Peter Irvine of 'The Salvage Squad' on upcycling furniture and DIY
Furniture was made from any available timber, recycled from old or disused furniture, green or "found" timbers, and was kept in circulation as long as possible. Large pieces were made by quality craftspeople, which with care and maintenance lasted for years. Many coats of paint disguised and preserving cheap imported timber. Bright colours were used to counteract dimly lit interiors and effects such as graining and ‘scumble’ were used to imitate premium hardwoods.
Multifunction has been long known in Irish vernacular furniture, for example settles or chests that could convert to beds. Furniture parts were easy to repair and replace. Upcycling was popular: for example, the availability of timber butter boxes from Irish creameries in the early 20th century led to householders turning them into stools with a lick of paint and homemade upholstery. There were ingenious and wild solutions to re-use: no dance floor at a party? No problem - at times of celebration doors were taken off their hinges and used as a makeshift stage for dancers.
Alternative materials were used, particularly straw. Straw was cheap and easily replaced, and used to make cosy armchairs, mattresses, mats, and draft excluders for worn gappy doors.
Another tenet of circular economy today, which is often overlooked, is the sharing of products and labour. In the past, at times when extra furniture was needed, such as for weddings and wakes, neighbours would lend chairs and furniture items and help out, with the promise the favour would be returned when required. This was part of the old Irish meitheal tradition and has similarities with the concept of modern ‘time banks’.
The old settle (three-seater bench with high back and wooden arms) was the constant unchanging object in my grandparents west Cork house, and a fresh lick of paint would have been given to it coming up to an occasion such as Christmas or a station Mass. It was as old as the stone farmhouse itself, almost one of the family, and survived many generations before it finally succumbed to fashion and was ‘upgraded’. The modern mindset is that homes demand modern furniture and built in-obsolescence doesn’t always exist in material form: an item of furniture could be in perfectly good working order yet be aesthetically or culturally obsolete.
Chairmaker John Surlis on Hands, an Irish television documentary series broadcast by RTÉ between 1978 and 1989, covering traditional Irish crafts
Fashion: upcycling
Imagine a scenario where instead of dumping your fast fashion clothing to a recycling bank you upcycled it into a useful product instead as part of an enjoyable hobby? Upcycling is the practise of turning something at the end of its life - and possibly facing landfill - into something of higher value. Previous generations, usually women, upcycled offcuts of fabric and other cloth remnants into patchwork quilts. It was often a leisure activity, and double quilts would be made to give as wedding gifts to couples. Often to supplement upcycled fabrics, scraps would be bought from dressmakers or mills. Irish patchwork quilts often combined highly contrasting bright colours to create bedcovers which had the reciprocal effect of brightening up dark cottage bedrooms.
Despite being rooted in frugality it is evident that the art of patchwork that emerged valued excellence in sophistication and technique even when using mere remainders of material. It is the pinnacle of domestic craft and innovation alongside tradition and thrift. Popular indigenous patterns included Irish chain, mosaic piecing, log cabin, some of which have an ingenuity and eye for colour and composition comparable to some works of modern abstract art.
‘The gentleman who pays the rent’: approaches to food waste in the past
These days we think nothing of scraping our plates into the bin and throwing out anything past it’s sell-by date. The approach to food consumption and waste in the past was markedly different. In rural Ireland, up until recently, people grew most of their food and it was a slow precarious process, dependent on the weather. With such time investment, food was highly valued, seasonal, and never wasted. Tastiness varied: while potatoes could be made into delicious potato cakes, on the other hand cold porridge sliced and fried sounds less appetising!
Read more: How to reinvent iconic Irish traditional furniture
Any leftovers not consumed by humans would be given to animals. The pig, traditionally known as ‘the gentleman who pays the rent’, was a valuable household asset, raised to be slaughtered, salted, and eaten by the family or sold at market. As such pigs were looked after well and fattened. So too were hens, another important part of the rural household. Traditionally, the woman of the house sold surplus eggs, the proceeds counted towards her ‘pin money’ she could spend on what she wished. Hens were so prized that they were often kept in the warmth and safety of indoors at night in specially designed coop dressers, which made egg gathering easier.
Every home had a compost heap or midden for any food scraps, garden waste and a larger heap comprising of dung or animal manure. Rural people understood the importance of nurturing the soil, and compost was known as the "wealth of the house", because well-rotted organic material made fine fertiliser. Archaeologists have found broken modern crockery in topsoil of fields, meaning farmers ploughed domestic waste, bringing it from farmyards to fields.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's The Claire Byrne Show, How cutting food waste can improve your cooking
"The original recyclers"
Members of the Travelling community played an important role in the disposal, recycling, and repair of metal. In the past, tinsmiths or ‘tinkers’ created and repaired a range of metal goods, such as mugs, pots and plates and turned old metal into useable objects such as buckets. Householders would hold onto damaged metal items and wait until the Travellers visited their locality to have it repaired. This reciprocal relationship and that Travellers saw the treasure in disposed objects and materials is acknowledged in the popular poem ‘Cúl an Tí’ by Seán Ó Ríordáin. The current success and expansion of the Galway business, BounceBack recycling enterprise is a successful example of the continuity of this cultural tradition in a contemporary circular economy context.
This is in no way a call to return to the past. It is worth reminding the reader that life back then was never easy, and comfort was scarce. As consumerism took hold from the mid twentieth century onwards, and before recycling and waste collections were available, many people would burn or bury their rubbish, which was detrimental to the environment.
Read more: How Irish Traveller stories link us to the natural world
In 2022, the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2022, was passed by the Irish government, in an attempt to shift Ireland from a "take-make-waste" linear model to a more sustainable pattern. The circular economy became defined as where "we use less raw material, we design products for long-life and recyclability, we share products, we use them for longer and we reuse and repair things before we recycle or throw them away."
As you can see, this was something which was practised and achieved unthinkingly and routinely by previous generations. Perhaps a change of mindset, even just ‘changing one thing’ at a time in our households, could lead to us being more ambitious in striving towards a broader sustainable economy in the future?
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
